drowelf

As we are on the Celebrity Infinity later this month, I've been using cruisemapper.com to track ship movements. I watched the Oosterdam and Sapphire Princess cruise around the Antarctic Peninsula areas for several days each. Currently tracking the Infinity as it is on its first foray into the area. Its been quite busy in that area, what with some of the big ships and lots of expedition ships visiting the area.

I wonder how those folks feel about the reduced offering. Most of the staff that you interact with (CD, Assistants, Bridge Staff, Casino Staff, Entertainers, Shop attendants, etc.) generally eat in the buffet.

The last time we were on a cruise during Playoffs they would broadcast them on the room TVs. For the Superbowl, they made a big deal off it, since it was a Sea Day. I remember that they had some special offerings in the Main Theater. On the main stage they had 2 setups. In the center they had a pair of big Barcalounger type chairs. Can't remember the prices, but it came with all the food and drinks you could consume during the game. There was a special menu of both snack food and drinks. You got a dedicated server to fetch it for you for the duration of the game. On each side of the center seating they setup up a couch and table, which had a server shared between them to fetch things.

The ship itself as the prime attraction has never been the reason that we cruise. The ship is my moving hotel that takes me to interesting places. In 25 years of cruising we have only done the Caribbean twice, as we are not beach people. We like to go to interesting places and see new sites. But since the ship is my hotel and restaurant, I expect decent service, some entertainment and good food options, since that is part of what I've bought for my considerable $$pp/day. We may eat in the specialty restaurant once/twice a cruise as a treat, but have a problem paying more $$ for food when its already baked into our cruise fare. Over the years we have migrated more to the buffet for most dinners, as we no longer want to spend 2+ hours having dinner. It just takes too long anymore. We like to eat with new folks at times, but the only time in the last 3 cruises that dinner took less than 2 hours is when we dine at a 2 top. Our preferred is 4 or 6 max. If the cutbacks in the buffer occur on our cruise later this month, its going to interesting as to how it affects our desire to cruise Celebrity in the future. We have mostly cruised HAL in the past and while the food was still good, the entertainment options have fallen off a cliff.

No, The 'everyone of legal age' requirement is for the booze packages. The zero-Proof package does not contain any language requiring all persons in the stateroom to purchase it.

Don't think so. Its called the Zero-proof and it does not have the following text, which is contained in the Classic/Premium Drink Packages Highlights Each adult of legal drinking age assigned to the same stateroom must purchase this package.

I don't think so, I just drilled down into the packages and the Classic and Premium booze package have a disclaimer that all members of the cabin must buy it, but the Zero-Proof does not contain the same disclaimer.

I don't know if I would say failed, it was around for over 20 years. Now a flavor that I would definitely classify as a failure was New Coke, it lasted a whooping 77 days.

That may be hard. Pepsi is (or already has) discontinuing Sierra Mist. So it could be hard to fine. Won't porkage be for the pigs brought on board. Beef would either be beefage or moooage.

I really wonder how this is going to go over with a small subset of cruisers. As we meet new folks on every cruise, I found that about 1 out of 10 NEVER eat in the MDR. They don't even bring appropriate clothes for the MDR which I can understand. If we did not eat in the MDR I would never pack dress pants or shoes or shirts with buttons. Well maybe a couple of polo type pull overs with 2 or 3 buttons 😁. It would be jeans and sneakers all the time. The DW would not have to pack any of her dressier clothes either.

I've got one scheduled on an upcoming Infinity cruise. Under the "Important Details and Advisements" it state, among other things. Photos and video may be restricted in certain areas of the ship. I plan on bringing my camera.

Some nights we just don't feel like spending 1.5+ hours at dinner. After a long day ashore, sometimes all we want is a quick meal in a pleasant setting. Don't need to get cleaned up and dressed for dinner, we prefer to just go up to the buffet and get a good meal. We are going on Celebrity at month end for the first time in many years and reading all this is depressing me and bit.

We have an upcoming Celebrity Cruise and reading all this is very disheartening. I'll reserve final option until we actually sail, but if its true, its going to be a major con to our future sailing. Somedays we just don't feel like getting cleaned up and dressed for dinner in the MDR, especially after a long port day. We don't want to spend 1.5+ hours eating dinner on some occasions either. We would just like a quick meal at the buffet and then onto our evening activities. That is one of the things we always enjoyed on Holland America Ships. The buffet generally always served the same meal as the MDR. We only occasionally eat in the specialty restaurants, generally as a treat once or twice a cruise. We already paid a bundle for our room and board and spending additional $$ in another restaurant on board has never sat well with us.

For 20 years we sailed HAL, simply because they experience was excellent, with many varied itineraries and simply loved the smaller ships. In fact for the last 5 years we only sailed on the Prinsendam, which only carried around 850 passengers. We cruise to go to new places around the world and have rarely repeated any ports. So until recently, HAL took care of us. But alas it seems that those days are over for HAL. We have friends on the Oosterdam right now and they have reported that they are very disappointed with the cruise. You know its bad when your avid cruising friends tell you that they are ready to "get off the boat" with 5 days still to go.

Don't get me started on Disney. We had a horrible experience about a decade ago. The most glaring fails were: DW's baked potato was cold when served. Replacement showed up with desert. The Belgian Waffle I ordered one day turned out to be a cold Eggo Waffle. You can easily tell the difference between a waffle cooked in a waffle iron, versus something that started out frozen and was just warmed up, which this one was not even warmed. There were quite a few more, but even trying to think about them again gets me upset.

After cruising pretty much only HAL until the pandemic, we are starting to branch out. We did a Princess last August, which was enjoyed and have a Celebrity later this month. I keep reading a lot about dissatisfaction with HAL over a variety of items. We started to notice the down grading of entertainment (shows) prior to the pandemic on our last cruise in 2019, but have not been back to HAL since, as the pandemic shutdown our cruising until 2022. We started with HAL and stuck with them for over 20 years, because we liked their unique itineraries and the ship board experience. Now it seems to have changed quite a bit. I suppose we are going to have to give them a go, probably in 2024, as our 2023 is full up.

Do they give the full amount in promotional chips or just the 10% extra?

What with the Amex offer currently on the table for me, I've decided to pre-purchase some slot credits for the DW and possibly some Table Chips for myself. The question that came to mind was about the amount, now for the slots, since it loaded onto the DW SeaPass I can see how they can do it $49.99 increments, as its all electronic, but how about for table chips? They can't give me $49.99 in chips. They can give me $49 and then .99 in cash, but they can't do 49.99. I suppose they could do $50, but why would they give me a free penny's worth? Anybody got an idea?

Thats because all the cruise lines have billions of $$ of new debt to service, some of which was probably acquired with some pretty pricey conditions. That debt needs to be paid off and the only source of $$$ is us the customers. Agreed, but don't know how they would manage some kind of phased rollout for folks who purchased the cruise before the cut-off date. This almost seems bait and switch type stuff, but I'm sure that the CoC has sufficient language to allow these types of changes after you've paid for your cruise.

Where do you find the link to buy OBC for the cruise? I've looked under all the tabs under "My Celebrity Cruise" but can't seem to find it.

True, I did not think about that as I've never had a positive balance on my ship account in over 20+ years of cruising, so its not something I would normally think about, but your right, the credit would go back on to a CC. To get around that, I would use one of my non-Amex cards as the card of record for paying the folio at the end of the cruise. Or I could just use that money as the DW Slot Budget. She adds money to her bank from the room charges.

Any OBC that you purchase is refundable, its the Stock Holders, FCD, Booking Bonus, TA Provided, etc. that is non-refundable.

Thats what I do all the time. I get emails when new offers are available and then I just add them all, after which some more turn up in a day or so. I got up to over 400 offers added to the card last month and for several weeks nothing new came in.

I got the 17500 points for the $500 offer. My upcoming cruise is fully paid for and there is not much I can do for other purchases, as we get wifi, drinks, gratuity, etc already paid for. So I suppose I could try the OBC Route.

The title pretty much says it all. What kind of outlets (US, European, etc.) and where are they placed in the standard Concierge Class Cabin on the Celebrity Infinity. In viewing the various reviews and pictures posted on line, all I've seen are 2 European Type above the desk area on the right hand side. TIA